Should You Buy a House or a Condominium?

This article from Realtor.com offers some great advice and a helpful five-step guide to help you make the decision on whether to buy a house or a condominium.  If you are prepared for the maintenance a home entails and you can identify a home in a neighborhood of choice, generally speaking a home has greater potential for appreciation of value.  There are five factors to take into consideration:  location, privacy, responsibility, maintenance, and budget.

If you’re moving to a new city, you’ll likely face a critical decision: Should your new home be a house or a condominium? With rates on average mortgage loans trending near all-time lows, this is certainly the time to buy any property.

Here’s a handy, five-step guide to help you make the house or condominium decision before you move:

  1. Location: First and foremost, you must decide where you want to live. From there, find out about the condominium and single-family home options in the area. If you want to be in the heart of the city, condos will be more prevalent. However, for the same price, you could potentially find a single-family home just a short commute away.  Start your property search here.
  2. Privacy:  Think about how much privacy you would like. Having complete privacy is possible in a single-family home, while condominium living means neighbors will be quite close. Condominiums may not offer private outdoor space.  
  3. Responsibility: When it comes to decisions affecting your home, do you feel comfortable involving neighbors? Many condominium communities have strict rules about everything from paint choices to the hours when you can take out your trash cans. Single-family home communities tend to be more lenient, unless the community has a homeowners’ association (HOA).
  4. Maintenance: Many condominiums include maintenance fees that cover landscaping and even exterior maintenance on the unit. With a home, the homeowner will have to take care of any maintenance. Many HOA communities do take care of exteriors, but specifics vary from neighborhood to neighborhood.
  5. Budget: How much do you want to spend on the property? Condominiums are usually more affordable than a house, even with the housing market in flux. Give this point considerable thought. The last thing you want is to overextend financially. Try using the home affordability calculator to help pinpoint a budget.

For more information on your decision to purchase a house or a condominium, contact Westside Los Angeles top producing realtor Julie Lovett @ julie@julielovett.com or 310.899.3514.